The Knights of Grimm - Act 3 - Shattered Memory

Chapter 46 - Horridus Morbus

Blake

She can feel the cold air brushing across her cheek, and the Architect looks around. He scans the air with the software that he has built into him as he looks around. Despite lacking a human face, they can tell that he is just as confused as she is. "That's weird..." The Architect states as he looks around, holding the rifle in one hand as he examines the scene. Qrow turns with an intrigued expression on his face.

"What is it?" Qrow asks.

"There is no sign of Horridus Morbus pathogens in the air; I thought it could have been like what happened at Vacuo." The Architect says, since he was there and saw how dead silent the city was as he stood there. But Qrow then catches onto something a little more disturbing than that, crouching down to the floor to see the sand as settled.

"There're no bodies...and there haven't been any for a while by the looks of things." Qrow tells them, sliding his finger across the sand that has settled. The sand sticks to the prints on his finger, and he looks back at them as he does that. They cannot help but sense the same feeling that Blake has.

The young Faunus Girl focuses her senses from her ears, the little cat-like ears perk up to hear the faintest breezes but she cannot hear a sound. Not a voice nearby, not a shuffle from someone walking through the bushes...not even the tweet of a bird. It is dead silent in Menagerie, and it has made things very, very tense right now. "That would have taken weeks, hell even a month to settle. And nobody around to disturb it?" Oobleck questions as he looks at the sand, and they cannot help but notice it all over the place. Sand has settled everywhere; they are on a desert island so it is expected.

But...

Not a single footprint?

That is worrying.

And they have not even left the docks yet, they still need to move further into the town. Blake sighs, walking ahead of them with Ruby and Oscar following her. They have their hands close to their weapons as they walk along, scanning the many houses that they pass by. She may have complained like Sun once did, but what she would give for another Faunus Civilian to bump into her by accident. "This is not right...there were people everywhere here. Even after Fury attacked Menagerie last time, I was here only a few months ago. Everything was fine." Blake speaks with a concerned trembling voice, checking every single window. Hoping to see a little face peaking through the blinds.

"Could have the White Fang captured them? Or recruited them?" Kassius suggests as he catches up to Blake, Ruby and Oscar. But Blake shakes her head, she knows the people of Menagerie too well and why they fled all the way to this Safe Haven.

"No, the people who lived here were tired of fighting. Both Ex-White Fang and Ex-Military lived here, or just people that wanted to stay away from the torment our species suffered." Blake explains, which explains further why this is so strange. Port crouches down to a house and checks under the stilts that hold it up, and there is nothing underneath it. Unlike the attack on Vacuo, there is no sign of the Horridus Morbus Caches that were placed and detonated.

"There's no sign of an attack either." Port adds, standing back up as he follows them across the path that moves through the street. The breeze blows dust across the pathway before them, like they have entered a set from a Western Movie, or something. The wind whistles around them like it is trying to get their attention. Pyrrha looks around and she feels her heart beating hard, so she tries something.

"Hello? Is anyone here? We're just passing through! We mean you no harm!" Pyrrha calls out, her regal voice echoes through the town of Kuo Kuana.

Nothing...